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Dessert

Sour Milk Spice Cake

A spiced cake made with sour milk, sugar, egg, shortening, flour, baking soda, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sour Milk Spice Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the shortening.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, then cream again.

  3. Add the beaten egg.

  4. Add the sour milk, mixing well.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and spices.

  6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with the fat.
Shortening
Creaming with sugar traps air and fat tenderizes the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its proteins set when baked.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the dry ingredients slowly and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter from being overworked. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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